Nanoscale movies shed light on one barrier to a clean energy future

Duke University researchers have captured close-ups of corrosion in action. They zapped nanocrystals of a catalyst called ruthenium dioxide with high-energy radiation and then watched the changes that occurred. To take pictures of such tiny objects, they used a transmission electron microscope, which shoots a beam of electrons through the nanocrystals (suspended inside a thin pocket of liquid) to create time-lapse images of the chemistry taking place at 10 frames per second. The result: close-ups of virus-sized crystals, more than a thousand times finer than a human hair, as they get oxidized and dissolve into the acidic liquid around them.